“I’m yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn’t homophobic, that isn’t bigoted to the out group.”

There are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. There is no equivalent of Al-Qaeda without the terrorism.

Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism.

No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion Islam is not Islamophobia.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn’t the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them.

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.

Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my – it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I’ve called it the re-humanisation process.

I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.

We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.

No form of theocracy, whether it’s manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.

I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they’ve joined.

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.

I don’t know what I am. And it’s not important.

If you chuck away too many things, you end up discovering there was value in them.

We may go to the moon, but that’ s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.

Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.